The Anaheim Ducks' Teemu Selanne talks with The Register's Tanya Lyon about the labor discussions and his possible retirement. OCREGISTER.COM

Teemu Selanne has put aside annual thoughts of retirement in the past to defy time and continue to thrive on the ice in an NHL career that’s destined to put him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Love of the game - especially of scoring goals - keeps him going. It could be that boardroom battles off the ice finally drive the Ducks icon into hanging up his skates for good.

Selanne said Wednesday he would strongly consider ending his career if the NHL canceled the rest of this season as a result of its continuing lockout of the players, reiterating what he said to Canada-based TSN last week.

Endless workout sessions and intrasquad scrimmages with a smattering of teammates and other locally based NHL players at Anaheim Ice, the Ducks practice facility, aren’t what Selanne signed up for last July after turning 42.

“A lot of times when I drive to the rink here and I know there’s only four of five guys skating, I’m thinking, ‘Right now, I’d like to call and say I’m done,’" Selanne said. “This is enough right now. I’m old enough to do something else and not play with the kids.

“Next time, I feel like I want to wait and see what happens. I have played so many games, so many years. This is not a big thing for me. If I have to retire like this, I’m still going to be a happy camper. But this is a sad way to go out, this way.”

The lockout is now 67 days old and there still appears to be no quick solution in sight. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the two sides are still far apart after the players’ union offered a new proposal during talks Wednesday.

Frustration is mounting among the players, many of whom believe the owners intended to lock them out all along and focused on getting a new collective bargaining agreement on their terms.

“The frustrating thing is I think that we could get a deal done right now and get going,” Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “I feel like they’re waiting until January so they can have their half season and playoffs.”

The speed of today's NHL sent Hall of Fame sniper Brett Hull into retirement after the 310-day lockout that wiped out the 2004-05 regular season. Selanne, whose 663 goals put him 12th on the all-time list, hasn't ever had a problem keeping up with the boys on the ice.

It has usually been about others being able to stay with the player many have longer referred to as the “Finnish Flash.” Every athlete, however, slows down at some point and Selanne said another canceled season might be too much for him and others.

“The last lockout, there were 240 players who never played another shift in the NHL,” he said. “Obviously if they’re going to (cancel) the whole season, there’s going to be a lot more players this time.

“Obviously I don’t know my situation but right now it’s very hard to even think about the year after this.”

Ducks center Saku Koivu has resisted the temptation to join the Finland-based TPS Turku team that he and his brother, Minnesota star Mikko Koivu, have an ownership stake in. Koivu had stayed in Orange County so that his kids could remain in school.

But that could change if the lockout continues to drag on.

“If they do cancel the season, then obviously we have to, as a family, maybe think about playing somewhere for the next couple of months,” Koivu said. “Hopefully we don’t have to get to that point.”

Left wing Bobby Ryan became the latest Ducks player to head overseas as he signed with Mora IK of Sweden’s HockeyAllsvenskan, the country’s second-highest professional league.

Ryan’s agent, Mark Guy, said the four-time 30-goal scorer will join Mora next week after participating with many other players in a charity game Saturday night to benefit those impacted by super storm Sandy.

“Mora has an open spot for an import and he felt that it was best at this stage to begin playing,” Guy said in an e-mail to the Register.

There is speculation that the NHL will cancel the All-Star game and the first two weeks of the December schedule on Friday. Getzlaf believes the league will ultimately make a deal when it is ready to.

“I’m still hopeful because I think the whole thing has been on a timetable [and] because they’ve shown nothing else,” he said. “They haven’t shown us anything in the fact that they want to sit down and get things done.

“We’ve got to be able to move both ways to get something done. Everything seems to be on a deadline now. We just don’t know when the next one is.”

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